P.S. I just realized that when Frank said "Look no further than me" he was not referring to his considerable knowledge, but to himself. It's a nice point.
JK ________________________________ From: John Kennison Sent: Saturday, October 27, 2018 2:32:37 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Open Letter, draft #2 Hi Marcus, Frank, et al, I am a mathematician who knows category theory, which Rosen seems to have found exciting. My thinking about a machine that would learn how to reprogram itself is surely at a naive level, but it seems to me that it would feel more like a being than a machine. All I know about Genetic Programming is what I just read after Googling that term and it looks like great idea. Frank's credentials are impressive but I don't know enough to, as yet, formulate a reasonable question to him. It looks that some very sophisticated programs can evolve and reprogram themselves which means, I think, that sequential machines can do amazing things. I guess my question would be: Is there something that animals, or more particularly humans, can do which we can prove cannot be duplicated by a sequential machine?' I have read Dennett's "Consciousness Explained" and Hofstadter's "I am a Strange Loop". There are parts of each book which still seem vague to me, but it seems likely that the answer to the above question is "No". But then I would need a different approach to trying to figure out what Rosen might be driving at. (I once had s copy of Rosen's "Life Itself" but I can't find it now --so I ordered a used copy for about $9.). On Geometric Algebra --my Googling of this term suggests that it has to do with what I would call tensors, which I saw briefly in an undergraduate Physics course, and very abstractly in a graduate Math course. I convinced myself they were about the same thing --John ________________________________ From: Friam <friam-boun...@redfish.com> on behalf of Marcus Daniels <mar...@snoutfarm.com> Sent: Saturday, October 27, 2018 11:11:10 AM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Open Letter, draft #2 How idoes genetic programming with automatic function definition not achieve this? From: Friam <friam-boun...@redfish.com> on behalf of John Kennison <jkenni...@clarku.edu> Reply-To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com> Date: Saturday, October 27, 2018 at 6:21 AM To: "Friam@redfish. com" <friam@redfish.com> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Open Letter, draft #2 I like the idea of a non-sequential machine, or perhaps, a being, whose operation is NOT determined by knowing how its component parts function. I don’t see how to go about constructing such a thing, unless I assume that there are laws of physics which remain undiscovered. So for now, I will settle on trying to describe a ``machine’’ which is not a sequential machine. I think that Rosen is right in saying that having a parallel machine (in which various operations happen simultaneously) will not do the trick because given any parallel machine one can define a sequential machine that functions in the same way. One might make a machine in which the outputs only happen with a certain specified probability, but I don’t think that is different enough. So I rephrase the problem as describing an entity that receives inputs and produces outputs that is cannot be duplicated (or reasonably modeled) by a probabilistic sequential machine (one in which the outputs happen with a specified probability). I thought of starting with a sequential machine, which has rules for how to react to inputs when in a given state. But now let’s suppose that the rules may change. The entity is capable of learning new rules. This seems more biological –the entity can reprogram itself. But I find that naive ways of reprograming can probably be duplicated by a sequential machine. For example, if the machine reprograms when dissatisfied with previous performance, then there is a new state, of being dissatisfied, and the reprograming activity can, it seems, be re-expressed as more sophisticated rules for producing an output. --John ________________________________ From: Friam <friam-boun...@redfish.com> on behalf of Tom Johnson <t...@jtjohnson.com> Sent: Wednesday, October 24, 2018 4:23:01 PM To: Friam@redfish. com Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Open Letter, draft #2 Yes, but not with multiple signatories. Sorry. ============================================ Tom Johnson Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA 505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h) NM Foundation for Open Government<http://nmfog.org> Check out It's The People's Data<https://www.facebook.com/pages/Its-The-Peoples-Data/1599854626919671> http://www.jtjohnson.com<http://www.jtjohnson.com/> t...@jtjohnson.com<mailto:t...@jtjohnson.com> ============================================ On Wed, Oct 24, 2018 at 11:45 AM Nick Thompson <nickthomp...@earthlink.net<mailto:nickthomp...@earthlink.net>> wrote: Thanks, Tom, Still trying to figure out logistics. I have written the NM-ican to find out how to submit a letter from many signers, but got no response. Do you have any experience with this? Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com<mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com>] On Behalf Of Tom Johnson Sent: Wednesday, October 24, 2018 11:14 AM To: Friam@redfish. com <friam@redfish.com<mailto:friam@redfish.com>> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Open Letter, draft #2 I will sign on, Nick. Tom Johnson, Professor Emeritus, San Francisco State University ============================================ Tom Johnson Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA 505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h) NM Foundation for Open Government<http://nmfog.org> Check out It's The People's Data<https://www.facebook.com/pages/Its-The-Peoples-Data/1599854626919671> http://www.jtjohnson.com<http://www.jtjohnson.com/> t...@jtjohnson.com<mailto:t...@jtjohnson.com> ============================================ On Tue, Oct 23, 2018 at 6:09 PM Nick Thompson <nickthomp...@earthlink.net<mailto:nickthomp...@earthlink.net>> wrote: Hi, all, Here is a new draft of the open letter, pared down to meet the New Mexican’s requirements. I have a few signatories, would love some more. I will bring the letter with me to our service on Friday. Even if you don’t plan to sign, please feel free to point out typos and other infelicities. Nick To the New Mexican We are industrial researchers and retired college professors, living in Santa Fe. We urge all Santa Feans to vote, but particularly young voters and their parents. Institutions of learning and their students are under stress. Every day, we meet young people as dedicated to learning as our best research students in the 70’s and 80’s, yet are working as cashiers, ride hail drivers, waiters and waitresses. Under present conditions, these talented young people cannot afford to go to university and, without that training, will never take up the leadership positions their talent should make possible. The nation will need these students as our generation retires from institutes, government laboratories, colleges, and universities. Please take time to vote and to tell your representatives to support education at every level. The future safety and prosperity of our nation depends on it. Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
